The Biggest Trends (and Craziest Android Phones) at MWC

This is the most interesting tech at this year's big mobile showcase in Spain, including folding phones, 5G handsets, and almost-notchless wonders.If you want a glance at the smartphones and wearable gadgets of tomorrow, get yourself a ticket to Spain. More than 100,000 people converge in Barcelona for the Mobile World Congress (MWC) trade show each February, and it tends to set the pace in the mobile industry for the year to come. The 2019 MWC is one of the more exciting shows in some time. Smartphones are beginning to get weird again, and that's a great thing. Below are some of the most interesting devices at the show this year, and the trends they're trying to start.
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Hole-Punched Screens

Samsung

Galaxy S10

Price$750

After seeing all of the phones that have been unveiled at MWC this week, it seems as though The Notch, a 2017-2018 design affect borne out of edge-to-edge displays, might very well meet its demise. Samsung’s new Galaxy S10, which was announced the week before MWC, is leading the 2019 trend. The new flagship phone has a small, laser-cut “hole punch” for its front-facing cameras rather than a wide brim at its top. Xiaomi, Sony, Vivo, and Honor are also showing off smartphone displays that manage to evade a protruding cut-out in some way. The notch isn’t totally dead yet, though; LG’s new G8 and V50 ThinQ smartphones still have one.

Huawei

Mate X

We've seen folding phone concepts for years, and now those visions are actually starting to crystallize. Huawei’s Mate X folding phone stole the show at MWC, for its build and for its price point. The Mate X has an 8-inch, plastic OLED display that folds outward, not inward like the just-announced Samsung Galaxy Fold. That means the Mate X effectively gives you a tablet-sized screen when it’s extended, and a 6.6-inch diagonal front screen and a 6.4-inch back display when it's folded. The Galaxy Fold, in comparison, has a small front display when the phone is closed. That’s not the only difference between Huawei’s Mate X and Samsung’s Galaxy Fold: When the Mate X ships this summer, it will cost around $2,600, which means your personal budget will need to be as flexible as the phone.

Huawei

Attachable Screens

LG

V50 (With Dual Screen)

Unlike Samsung and Huawei, LG doesn’t have a folding phone this year. To combat its folding FOMO, the company is rushing another high-end device out the door. The LG V50 has an optional case that pretty much doubles its display size, adding a second 6.2-inch OLED screen that opens up like a clamshell phone case—letting you lay it out flat or position it more like a laptop screen. You can use both displays independently, switch between them, or play games like you’re on a souped-up dual-screen Nintendo 3DS. Sadly, the feature may not come to the US. The company hopes the included 5G modem and speedy Snapdragon 855 chip will make up the difference.

LG

Ultrawide 4K Screens

Sony

Xperia 1

Sony wants to hit the reset button on its Xperia Android phones to revive interest in the brand, and it’s hoping a movie-quality screen may do the trick. The Xperia 1 has the same fancy new Snapdragon 855 chipset as all the hot new flagship phones, but it’s standout feature is a 6.5-inch CinemaWide display (21:9 aspect ratio) with a full 4K resolution. That’s a longer, and far more pixel-dense screen than its competitors. Widescreen movies on Netflix may play without black bars on the top and bottom, and Sony says there’s more room for dual-app multitasking, as well. A triple camera setup on the rear and high-resolution audio support are two other bonuses in the X1.

Sony

Air Gestures

LG

G8 ThinQ

LG is packing more than just camera sensors into the notch on its new flagship phone. You can unlock its new G8 flagship with your face and control it with touchless gestures, thanks to a new sensor packed into the front module. “Air Motion,” as it's called, can be used to accept or reject phone calls, adjust volume, and switch between apps with a simple wave of your hand. The phone also reads palms, with LG claiming it will “identify owners by recognizing the shape, thickness, and other individual characteristics of the veins in the palms of their hands.” Weird futuristic stuff aside, the G8 appears to be a pretty solid flagship. The other big feature: There are no traditional speakers on the phone. The top and bottom of the display vibrate, acting as a “speaker screen.”

LG

Camera Cramming

Nokia

9 PureView

If the Nokia brand is ever going to worm its way into our hearts and our everyday lives again, it might just be with five cameras packed into one smartphone. The new, $699 Nokia 9 PureView phone (Nokia is now a part of Finnish mobile company HMD Global) has five rear cameras that share the same basic specs, including Zeiss lenses, but capture photos at different exposures in order to pull in as much data as possible and stitch all of it together into one stellar image. Camera aside, it’s not the fastest phone out there—it’s running on a slightly outdated Qualcomm Snapdragon processor—but it has a dedicated processor just for images and it comes with Adobe Lightroom pre-installed, which really might make it a smartphone photo-lover’s dream.

Nokia

A.R. Advancements

Microsoft

HoloLens 2

Price$3500

MWC has become something of a launchpad for VR and AR headsets over the past few years, and Microsoft certainly validated that at this year’s show. The tech giant chose MWC as the place to reveal HoloLens 2, its second mixed reality headset. It costs a steep $3,500, and like the first HoloLens, is aimed squarely at commercial customers: think frontline workers, architects, military personnel. (In fact, Microsoft’s military contract for HoloLens has become a serious source of contention.) But it has improved in remarkable ways. It’s much more comfortable to wear, supports new gesture controls, and utilizes optics to increase the field of view. Plus, its custom-made chipset now includes a neural processing unit. In short: It’s a full PC on your head, and much more than just a pair of “AR glasses.”

5G Phones

Here at WIRED, we still think you should ignore 5G for now. Speeds of 10 gigabits per second sound thrilling, but we’re still a couple years away from 5G becoming a real option for most of the country. When it does come, it’s likely not going to change anything overnight, either. That isn't stopping phone makers from trying to sell you on it, though. Samsung, LG, Huawei, Xiaomi, and ZTE have shown off 5G-capable devices at MWC, and more will come. A word to the wise: The first 4G LTE phones were hot awful messes years ago, so if you buy an early 5G device, do your homework. Also, don’t let wireless carriers fool you into thinking 5G has already arrived. It hasn’t.